Exploring My Strange Bible - Testing Jesus in the Wilderness - Gospel of Matthew Part 3

Episode Date: May 14, 2018

This is specifically a teaching that I did about Matthew Chapter 4 and the well-known story of Jesus being tested by the evil one in the wilderness. One of my biggest goals was to debunk a bunch ideas about Satan and the devil that aren’t actually in the Bible. I think debunking these ideas is a really important part of following Jesus because we should recognize the reality of “evil” and what that means.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right, well, on this episode, we're going to continue in our series exploring the gospel according to Matthew. Specifically, this is a teaching I did in the series exploring Matthew chapter 4, the well-known story of Jesus being tested by the evil one in the wilderness.

This was a number of years ago from where I sit right now, a number of years ago that I did this teaching. And one of my big goals was that to actually debunk a whole bunch of ideas about Satan and the devil that have entered into the Christian tradition and people's ideas of this being that aren't in the Bible at all. They're actually much later European mythological and medieval ideas. What's interesting was looking back over my notes, I, Tim of 2018, I wish I could sit down with then Tim of 2015 and like say, hey, you should say things a little bit differently. Maybe put it this way, not that way. A big thing that I say in the teaching, I still remember because I made a whole bunch of people uncomfortable and asked me questions afterwards was I go on to think about angels and how angels in the Bible

don't have wings, which is true. What many people, what I didn't go on to clarify was that there are figures with wings that are in God's heavenly presence described in the Bible. They're called the seraphim or the cherubim, those are never called angels in the Bible. Angels are the human-like figures described in the Bible as giving messages to people from God, and they're never depicted with wings. But I didn't make that clarification, and so a bunch of people were confused. Anyway, this was an important moment for me personally to both debunk what, to me, were ideas about spiritual evil that actually

made it more difficult to believe in, and then rediscovering what the apostles are actually trying to communicate about the nature of spiritual evil, which is a really important part, I think, of following Jesus is to recognize the reality of evil and what that means. So, there you go. I offer this episode to you. Use your mind. Open a Bible, Matthew chapter 4. I think it'll help you, and let's learn together. I don't know how much you read the Bible, and maybe you think the Bible's full of stories of people in the desert talking to demons, but it's not. It's not. It's actually quite a unique story. There is nothing

else like this story in any of the four accounts of the life of Jesus. No, excuse me, that's misbehave. There's nothing like this in any of the accounts. Three of the four in the New Testament have some kind of version of this story right here. It's a strange story. Jesus, and he's out alone, and he's not interacting with any other people. That's unique. There's no other story like that in the New Testament accounts. And that he's interacting in this verbal kung fu battle with the spiritual evil, right? With Satan, the devil. What on earth is this story about? I think for many of us, the oddity, right, of how kind of odd or strange this

story is, we do a few things, we're just like, oh, that's weird, I'm just going to move on, you know, it's kind of a strange story. Some of us might find real interest in this. I find, at least in, I think, in American settings, modern American settings, belief in or recognition of some kind of invisible spiritual evil divides a room in half about the same way that whether you like or hate cilantro divides a room in half, which is, just do the experiment. It's always about half, half hate same way that whether you like or hate cilantro divides the room in half, which is just do the experiment. It's always about half, half hate, half love it. And I find that in our setting, about half have no problem whatsoever recognizing the reality of some kind of spiritual evil, and that the other half of the room just finds all of this really quite difficult to swallow. It's just, you know, weird superstition and so on. And so this story about Jesus and the devil in the

wilderness is kind of iconic in the Christian imagination, at least. And I think there's a lot of layers of misunderstanding on top of, laid on top of this story. And so this is a very powerful story. And it's crucially placed at the transition from Jesus going into private, into his kind of public announcing the kingdom mode as Israel's Messiah. And the fact that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all place this story at precisely this point tells us that this is, to understand Jesus is to understand this experience that he went through. And so I kind of want to help us clear away some of the debris to really hear what this story is saying right here. A helpful way to do that, and I learned this while I was kind of reading and reflecting and learning about this story, is to look at how this story has been read and

interpreted and depicted throughout Christian art history. This is actually fascinating. You can do this with many, many biblical stories, is trace the way that how they've been depicted by Christian artists has changed throughout history. And this story is a really, really interesting example of that. The earliest depictions in terms of like church walls or mosaics or paintings about this story right here, The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness. For as far as we can tell, the first thousand years, which was dominated by a certain art form called the Romanesque style. It was the ancient tile mosaic style from the Greek and Roman cultures, and the Christians adopted that style. And they

look a lot like this. You'll see an image here. So, most, you know, actually, very few paintings exist from the first, you know, five centuries or so of early Christianity. It's mostly in the form of architecture or like floor or wall mosaics in churches. And so, here you have in the Romanesque style, you have Jesus three times encountering the devil. And notice how the devil is depicted in this scene. He's a scaly, horned, reptilian figure with wings. That's quite odd. I've never seen a creature like that. And so, but that, for the first thousand years or so of church history, this is how this story was depicted. What's fascinating is that in the early Renaissance period in Europe, as visual realism picked up steam more as a part of art

and realism and so on, and I'm not an art history expert by any means. So some of you are, and you're like, this guy doesn't know anything. And that's true. That's true. But here's what I do know, because I read somebody who doesn't know about it, that the shift took place in how this story got depicted towards more of a realist mode, and the way that the devil was depicted changed, as you can see in the next image here. If you look at churches or paintings from these centuries, about the 1200s to the 1500s, you notice that the devil gets depicted no longer, or not as often at least, in the scaly, this really grotesque, you know, reptilian type deal. And he's most often depicted

as a monk. Isn't that interesting? As a monk. Now, so there's a mental shift happening here that evil as it presents itself in the Bible is not this easy-to-spot, grotesque reality. It's actually a masked reality that can appear even in the form of good. In this case, you know, a loyal, faithful monk. You can see, however, the monk, especially in this motif in the Renaissance period, the monk will always have the clawed reptilian feet to remind you of who this figure is, and maybe wings, as you can see in this. But for most of them, you can see there's a shift happening in how the devil is imagined. And then as you move from the last phase into the early modern, late Renaissance, early modern period, it changes yet again, and the devil

is depicted in actually not any kind of grotesque way at all, but as a way that angels were depicted, fully as a fully angelic picture. No horns, no claws, no scales or anything like that. Now, here's something that's totally interesting about the way that angels have come to be depicted in European art history. So did you know, and if you didn't, you should know this, that there is actually no winged human figure anywhere in the Bible.

There is no angel whatsoever that has wings anywhere in the Bible. Where that idea came from is where most of this imagery came from is Greek mythology. And it got filtered into Christian art history through Milton, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Dante's Inferno, and so on. Your imagination is filled with images of angels and demons that are found nowhere in the Bible. They're found in Milton and in Dante, and they're from Greek and

Roman mythology. And this is my point, is that it's actually the fact that every generation remakes these creatures in their own imagination that should alert us to something. First of all, that we're missing the point. We're missing the point. In trying to visually depict these creatures, we're missing the profound reality that the Bible is trying to tell us that these are not physical creatures,

and that the way that evil works is way more mysterious and ambiguous than is simply like making a picture of a gargoyle or something like that. And so there's that. We remake these creatures in our own imagination. And I think in the modern period, it's what made this reality so easy for many of us to dismiss. Hocus pocus, medieval, you know, superstition, mumbo jumbo, and we think that that's what the Bible is saying, and then we just ditch the whole thing altogether.

And so let's just clear all that away. There's no winged humans, and there's no gargoyles in the Bible. But there is this claim that reality as we know it is pervaded with some form of evil that's more than just stupid human choices. That evil is a, is a reality, there's a mysterious personal reality working in and behind and through human selfishness and, and sin. And the way that that figure is presented in the Bible is in this figure called the devil, or the Satan, as we'll see in this story. And apparently, Jesus saw his identity and his vocation, first and foremost, to deal with that. And this is the first conflict or battle that Jesus enters into in the stories about him.

And so we do well to dismiss the silliness, but pay attention to the reality and try and hear with fresh ears what the story is trying to get at here. So what I want to focus on is first, we're just going to dive into the story. We're going to look at who is Jesus, who is this figure, this mysterious figure, And what's the battle? This is the story of a battle. And there is a victor that emerges from this battle. And it probably, I won't be like a buzzkill to tell you who the victor is. It's Jesus. He's the victor. But the question is, what is this conflict? Who are the players? What is the conflict? And what's the outcome of this battle?

It's a hugely significant story. And I've learned a ton in reading and reflecting on this story to help us think about it together. So let's just dive right in and let's see where the rabbit hole leads us here. So we're told that Jesus, right at the beginning, chapter 4, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for what purpose? To be tempted by this figure. Don't think gargoyle, just don't think anything in your head.

And then Jesus, we'll talk about this in a minute, he fasts, he's hungry, and then this figure comes to him and starts asking questions. And what's the first statement or first question made? If you really are the Son of God. Now, let's stop right there. Matthew reads, and this is going to be a challenge for us as we go week by week because there's a clear narrative flow to how all of the stories fit together.

So look just at the end of the last story that comes right before this one. It's at the end of chapter 3. It was the baptism of Jesus, which is also a hugely significant story in the flow of Matthew's presentation of Jesus. So we have the genesis of Jesus, then we have John the Baptist. He's this Hebrew prophet figure saying that the Messiah is coming, and who should appear? Jesus of Nazareth from Sticktown, if you remember that whole deal.

So Jesus of Nazareth arrives, and then there's this very public dramatic moment. As he's baptized, Jesus is identified with this renewal movement of what God's doing among his people. And then all of a sudden we're're told the heaven's open. That's remarkable. And the Father's voice speaks from heaven, publicly declaring Jesus's identity. And look at chapter 3, you know, verse 16, we're told what the voice says. Excuse me, verse 17, this is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased. So Jesus is publicly declared to be the son of God, whom God loves, whom God is pleased with. And the Spirit goes from the Father and communicates that

message and that love to the son. It's very public, and in the drama of the story, it's sort of like, whoa, our hero, here he is, this is who he is, the Son of God. And then the Spirit does another thing. The Spirit communicates that message and that love, and then what does the Spirit do? Leads him into the wilderness to be tested or tempted, and what's the first struggle that Jesus goes through? It's this questioning of his identity as the Son. You see this here. So these stories flow exactly together. What is this story about? This story, well, actually, where did a story like this even come from? So all of the stories in the Gospels say Matthew. Every story has some other

people around who would have seen or heard what Jesus said. This is what Jewish disciples did with the rabbi. They would follow them everywhere. They would learn their teachings, watch things happen as they did it, commit all of that to memory, and pass that along as disciples. And so there's eyewitness accounts behind every story that we see in the Gospels, except for this one, because no one else was there. Where did this story come from? And so I think we have to assume that this story came from Jesus. At some point, Jesus had an experience that represented a moment of him wrestling and struggling with his identity. And maybe you've wondered this before, like at what point did it dawn on Jesus who he was and what he was called to do? And this story

is the only story, I think, that gives us a window into what that was like. Whatever it was like for Jesus, it wasn't like white robes floating six inches above the ground and like, I'm the son of God. And he wasn't doing that at age three, something like that, you know? At some point, there was some dramatic events in his life where this all dawned on him, who he was and what he was called to do. And this testing in the wilderness was an experience that he went through. And why did he share it with his disciples? The only reason we have it is, of course, because at some point he passed it on to his disciples to memorize. And so Jesus evidently saw some kind of value that his disciples know that he went through this experience. And as we're going to see, I think it's because he assumed that if we're

disciples following this Jesus, that he assumed that we also will go through this same kind of testing. But that's getting ahead of myself here. So that's where this story must have come from. And Jesus wants us to learn something vital here about the test, the test that he went through. Now, if you look at verse 1, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and for what purpose? What do you see there? To be tempted. Now, some of you might have an older English translation that's not really that common anymore. Some of you might have the word test right there, but my guess is that we all have the English word tempt at verse one. Are you with me? We've all got tempt. Okay, so here's what's going on. This is fascinating.

So the Greek word used right here is the word perazo. Class? Perazo? Trained you well. So perazo. So here's what the idea is, at least. It's rendered in most of our English translations to tempt. And that's fine.

I think that gets us part of the way there. But here's the problem with it. This is not a problem with the Bible. This is a problem with our English word tempt, is that it's too limited. I think it's too small to really get across what's happening here. So, would you ever tempt someone to do good? It's happening here. So would you ever tempt someone to do good?

If you're like sitting with a co-worker and they were really down and you wanted to give them some encouraging words, you would never say like, you know, I'm just feeling tempted to say some nice things to you right now. You're never tempted to do good. In English, you're tempted to do evil. That's what the word means in modern English. Now, here's the problem is that you could read this story, oh yeah, Jesus is tempted to do bad things. But you're going to come across another story where Jesus undergoes another perazzo, or the noun is called perazmos,

but that's the verb. Anyway, sorry. I'm sorry I said that. So I always hate it when... Well, never mind. Okay, never mind. So Jesus will undergo this experience again, only this time it will be the religious leaders. The Pharisees are going to come to him and do this to him, asking him questions about the interpretation of the Torah and so on. Now, are they trying to get Jesus to do evil? No, no. They're doing something that really is captured by our English word, test. And I think

actually test gets us to the heart of what this experience is about. If you're a school teacher and you're guiding these students through learning the history of the American Revolution or something like that, and you finish that module, and then you want to find out the truth about what they have absorbed over the course of the three weeks or whatever, what do you give them? At least in some educational models, you give them a test. Are tests fun? For some of us more than others, more or less than others, right? But for the most, I think most of us would say no. Are they challenging? They're difficult. They're stressful.

So what we're talking about, a test is a set of difficult circumstances. And here's, I think, a simple way to say it. Tests reveal the truth of who you are. Have you actually been doing homework or whatever? Have you been staying up all night playing video games or something like that. The test is a difficult circumstance that tells the truth about who you are. So God tests Abraham in a famous story in the Hebrew Scriptures, and God is not trying to get Abraham to do evil. God has confidence in Abraham's character,

not trying to get Abraham to do evil. God has confidence in Abraham's character, and the test reveals that truth about Abraham's character. The Pharisees, later on in the gospel, they want to reveal the truth about Jesus, and they try and trap him with his words so that everybody will know exactly who he thinks he is and what he says he's all about, and so on. And so here's what I would submit to you, is that this is actually a much more helpful way to help us make sense of this story. So here you have the Son of God who's come, the one who's the divine and human Messiah, Son of God, and so on. And the tester comes to him. We'll talk about the tester more in a second. The tester comes to him, and does the tester know about humans? Has the tester been working on humans ever before? So the tester knows all about humans. And so the truth about Jesus is going to be revealed.

But yet at the same time, we're told that Jesus, this isn't just like the devil luring Jesus into his trap. Jesus is led by whom? By the Spirit sent from the Father. And so what you have is Jesus being led into a battle intentionally to reveal the truth about who Jesus is. And that truth will come as a great, I think, surprise to the tester. And that's what's going on. This isn't a story about innocent Jesus being tempted to do evil. This is a story about the Messiah and Savior of the world showing the truth about who He is by undergoing the test. And that this was a very personal experience that Jesus has that marked him so much that he was certain that it would also mark the journey of his followers. And so he's given this story to us to learn from, both learn who Jesus is, but also to learn what's ahead

for you and I as his disciples. So that's what's going on here. There's two, disciples. So that's what's going on here. This story is like an onion. I'm telling you guys, this story is you peel one layer and you're like, okay, now I understand what the story is. And then you're like, dang it, more layers, what? And so yes, there are more layers of the story that I think will help us get what's going on. Here's another layer to pull back. Can you think of another story in Israel's scriptures, in the Old Testament scriptures, that tell a story about a son of God who came up out of Egypt, passed through the waters,

and went into the wilderness for 40... Right, exactly. So we talked about this a couple weeks ago, that Matthew has arranged the stories of the Genesis of Jesus to correspond to the story of Israel in its infancy as a people and a nation, coming out of Egypt as redeemed slaves, passing through the waters, wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. So Jesus came up out of Egypt, baptized in the waters, right into the wilderness for 40 days. In other words, and who is Jesus?

We've already been told. He's the Messiah. He's the king who represents the people of Israel. And so we could depict it this way. We could say, here's Jesus, right, being tested in the wilderness. But his test is meant to remind us or correspond to the test of his people, the people of Israel, who also were in the desert for 40 years, being, whoa, that was awesome, being tested, being tested.

And this is an explicit connection that's vital for understanding the story. Here's an example of why. If you look at descriptions of Israel's 40 years in the Old Testament scriptures, you'll come across a paragraph in the Torah where Moses is recalling this test of Israel in the wilderness. It's in Deuteronomy chapter 8, and I would like to read it to you, and you will just see all kinds of connections leaping off the screen. I was going to say leaping off the page, but that's not really a page, is it? That's a screen. Deuteronomy 8. This is Moses, and he's talking to Israel, and he says, remember how the Lord your God led you all

all the way in the wilderness these 40 years to humble and to test you. So not to do evil. To humble and to test you. So not to do evil. He's testing to reveal the truth about his people. To humble and test you in order to know what's in your heart, to reveal the truth. Whether or not you would keep his commands, he humbled you, causing you to hunger,

feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors has known. To teach you that man does not live on bread alone, I feel like I heard that already this morning. And here, discipline, don't think spanking or something like that. It's the Lord leading his people into an experience that will reveal the truth about who they are. And how did the people of Israel do in the test of the wilderness, if you know the stories? Pass or fail? Fail. Big time. Big time. Fail. All right. And so here's what Matthew's trying to tell us, right? Israel was called to be the family of Abraham, through whom God would bring his blessing to the nations, who would become a kingdom of priests, who would represent the creator and redeemer God to all of the nations,

and they failed. They failed. They experienced God's generosity and his grace, redeeming them from slavery. They get out in the wilderness, and they say, we want to go back. We hate it here. We don't, like, why did you even bring us out of here in the first place? Give us something to eat. Give us something to drink. Who do you think? Like, that's how they went through the test. And so Matthew's trying to say, Jesus is now, he's restarting the story of Israel. He has come to be what the people of Israel failed to be, and he does so not as their

replacement, but as their king, as their Messiah and representative. He is going to succeed where they failed. Okay, that's the second layer of the onion. You pull that one back, and you're like, oh my, there's another layer. Holy cow. And think about it. This is a way to get at this onion. Has Jesus come just to save, you know, his own tribe, the people of Israel, Jewish people? Did Jesus just come for Jewish people? So, no. The whole point of the story of the Bible is that this is all framed in the story of what God is doing for all humanity. Enough space for my why there.

Yes. So, can you think of another story where the representative of humanity was given a vocation, and a vocation from God, and then all of a sudden a tester appeared and began to undermine and twist God's words and get the human representative to doubt God's character and goodness and tries to lead them astray. Can you think of a story like that? Oh, right, like page three of your Bible. Yeah, page three. And so Matthew knows exactly what he's doing right here. Jesus is not just coming to be what Israel was called to be and do but failed. He's calling to actually be the human who is the first human who actually succeeds at being a human being. He's coming as the one who is the image of God. And the paradox at the heart of the Christian

good news is that it's God becoming human to be the kind of human towards God that you and I are incapable of, at least have proved ourselves incapable of being, so that we can actually finally become that in the first place. That's what's happening here. Jesus is in the garden all over again, and he's doing it for us. And the question is, will he pass? Will he fail? How, if he's going to succeed, how is he going to succeed on our behalf? This is a story about Jesus being Israel's Messiah,

being the truly human one for us and on our behalf. It's the showdown with evil. That's what the story is about. So this is at the core of Jesus's mission, his identity, and his representation of us doesn't just happen on the cross. It begins right here at the beginning, at the beginning of the story. Now there's actually more layers to the onion, but I have to stop now because we have to move on forward into the story. How are you guys doing? So, let's keep going. So, Jesus, he's led by the Spirit to be tested by this figure. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. I forgot this. Who's the tester? He's called the tester in verse 3. He's also called the devil. He's also called the Satan. Satan is not a proper name in the Bible. It's a title that means adversary or

the opponent. Who is this figure? Where did this figure come from? To this, the Bible says. this, the Bible says, right? So, yeah, there you go. Yeah, but it doesn't say. It doesn't say. It's maddening for many Christians throughout history. It's so maddening, in fact, that it's made Christians go bungling through different biblical passages and making them into a story about the origins of this figure, one in Isaiah, one in Ezekiel. It's clear that I don't agree with that view. I don't think the biblical story gives us any origin story of evil. And that's frustrating for some of us, but it fits with the Bible's purpose. The purpose of the Bible is not to give us all of the answers to our intellectual questions, right, about the world. And here's one. Where did

evil come? What on earth is it doing in God's good world? Messing everything up. And the Bible doesn't tell us the answer to that question. What the Bible does tell us in its purpose is to tell us what God is doing about evil in the story of his actions through history that lead up to Jesus and his showdown with evil. And so whatever we say about evil doesn't say where it comes from. It's a creature. Somehow evil is represented as a creature. It's not some God equal to the Creator, Redeemer God. It's a creature in rebellion. We don't know that story, but it's a creature in rebellion. It hates life. It hates what is good. It hates humans made in God's image,

and it wants to get us to doubt who we are as creatures made in God's image. It wants us to doubt the Creator's goodness towards us and lead us on a path towards death. That's the portrait you can put together of this being. If you even want to call it a personal being or whatever. I call it an it because I kind of think he gives it too much dignity. It's evil, and it's mysterious, and Jesus is here to deal with that. So, this figure comes to Jesus and begins to test, and how does it test? His voices. His voices that come asking questions, and let's get into these questions because they get us into the heart of what this is all about. Verse 3. The tester came to him and said, there's two pieces of this,

if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Now right off the bat, there's a technique here, there's a method of the tester. So you the reader of the story is jesus the son of god okay so whether or not you personally accept that or believe that it's not the question does the story present jesus as it claims to be the son of god and and does god love does the father love the's pleased with him. Okay, that all went down. But now comes this voice, like, really? If you really are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. I think there's two things going on here. First of all, Jesus is now out here starving by this point, 40 days, starving. That can't have been a fun test, right? An experience.

But so the tester comes and tries to undermine Jesus's identity by pointing out Jesus's circumstances. You're the Son of God, and you're out here going through hell and hunger and thirst. Huh? Do you see the disconnect there, Jesus? If you really are the beloved Son of God and you are the object of the Father's love, what on earth are you doing out here starving in the desert? That's right there underneath the question here.

If you are the Son of God, what are you doing out here? And so, he's trying to undermine the Son's trust in the Father, but then also this test of Jesus' loyalty to the Father. So, if you are the Son of God, what on earth are you doing in these difficult circumstances? Clearly, he must not have your best interests in mind, because look at what's happening to you. And by the way, this is happening to you, and if you are the Son of God, then you can surely do something about this. So why don't you just solve your problem? Make the solution. Make bread out of rocks. Like, you're the Son of God. You can do this kind of thing. Just see what's happening here. It's an undermining of Jesus's trust and an undermining of Jesus' loyalty to the Father

that says he trusts the Father to lead him. He trusts the Father to guide him in his will. And so for Jesus, this is a test of, does he trust the Father with his life? Does the Son trust that regardless of the circumstances, my circumstances do not define who God is to me? What's at root here? And so look how Jesus responds. He answered and says, it is written, and he just quotes from that paragraph from Deuteronomy 8 that we just read. Here's Israel that failed its test in the wilderness, and the whole point of this is to show us, what's he say here, that man does not live by bread alone.

Humans don't live on bread alone. Now, I think what many people hear Jesus say sometimes is people don't live on bread, but what matters is God's Word. And of course that's ridiculous. but what matters is God's word. And of course that's ridiculous. So do people need bread to live? Yeah, that's fairly obvious, I think, that one. And Jesus doesn't say people don't live on bread. He said people don't only live by bread. So you can exist as a human and have food and shelter and clothing even, but yet still truly not live as a fully flourishing, healthy human, right? So humans can scrape by on subsistence living, but all you're doing is getting the same level as like raccoons and ants or something like that who just survive, right? But there's this whole reality and the complexity of human psychology and so on about what kind of beings we are,

that we're beings that need more than just to survive. We need purpose. We need to know that our lives fit somewhere into some bigger thing that's significant or that has meaning. We need a story. Humans need a loving community of relationships to both know and be known and to love and be loved in order to fully

flourish as human beings. This is not rocket science. This is true to every one of our experience. And it's also true that when humans are denied those types of things, we just absolutely wither as human beings. And so what Jesus is saying is, yes, human beings, of course, live on bread, but to truly live, we need some kind of word from the Creator, some kind of word about who we are and what we're here for, and that tells us the truth about ourselves and that will somehow bind us together as we journey into that story of what God has called us to as human beings. And so in this case, Jesus is saying, I might live, I might die. My mere physical survival, that actually isn't the sum of what my life is about. My life

has meaning because of the word spoken to me by the Father that I trust more than my circumstances. This is so profound. This is so profound. Jesus looks at the hell of hunger and thirst and says that doesn't define the meaning of my life. My love for, my loyalty, and trust in the Father's word to me as he guides me is more real than the circumstances that I find myself in, however difficult. This is not a trite story. This is about what it means to be human and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Second test. Verse 5. We're told that the devil then took Jesus the holy holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple now don't again don't get the little movie in your mind of like jesus walking along with a gargoyle like through the streets of jerusalem up to the so obviously ridiculous okay or walking with some invisible figure talking with them or so that's also ridiculous so what's happening here and what's happening here is something that happens quite a number of times in the Hebrew scriptures. What is this experience that Jesus was having?

I think this gives us a clue that Jesus is having what the prophets call a vision, some kind of visionary experience that's connected to the Spirit of God coming over you, and you're being able to see and perceive realities that are at the heart of existence in the human story. So about the only analogy I can think to this, it's like when Frodo puts on the ring. I think we all are kind of familiar with what's going on. and think to this. It's like when Frodo puts on the ring. I think we all are kind of familiar with what's going on. He goes into this in-between world, in-between world, and then he can see things and have experiences and encounter realities and even people, but he's still like sitting in a cave putting on the ring or something like that, but no, that's his Bilbo,

isn't it? I'm sorry. Whatever. You get the point here. So, whenever the Spirit of God comes on someone and leads someone, and then they're taken places, these are experiences that Zechariah the prophet had, Isaiah, Ezekiel. Ezekiel the prophet's sitting in Babylon, but he has the Spirit of God comes on him, he has this vision, and then all of a sudden he's like cruising around the temple in Jerusalem a thousand miles away. And then the vision is over, and he finds himself in his house again, all he's actually really disoriented by the whole experience. And so that's what's going on here, I think. He's in the wilderness, but he's taken to Jerusalem, so to speak. And he stands at the high point of the temple, big, tall building, and here's the test. If you are the Son of God, same tactic, right?

So this undermining. If you really are beloved of the Father, throw yourself down. For it is written, new technique, quote, Bible. Use Bible verses, right, to mess up everything. He will command his angels concerning you, lift you up in your hands, you won't strike your foot against a stone. Now, Bible geeks, look at your footnote. Where's he quoting from in the Bible? I am not the only Bible geek here. I know it. I can, all right? So Psalm, Psalm what? What number?

Psalm 91. Yeah, Psalm 91. And if you go look up Psalm 91, just like you should go look up Deuteronomy 8 when Jesus quotes it, go look up Psalm 91. It's this beautiful poem of trust and faith. It begins, for the one who makes the Lord his refuge,

he'll protect him, his presence will be with him. For the one who looks to Yahweh and cries out to him, he will deliver him, and so on. It's this beautiful poem that's meant to bring us to a place of prayer and trust independence when we're in very difficult circumstances. And we're told that he will protect us with his angels that don't have wings. I don't see wings anywhere. That's right. And they will lift you up, and they'll protect you. Okay. So here's what happens. If you really are the Son of God, because that's a question, Jesus. Look at your circumstances. So if you really are the Son of God, let's go to the place that's like

the hot spot of the Father's presence. Temple. Big, tall building. And let's, it's like a dare, like a double dog dare or something like this. You know, it's kind of like, throw yourself down. Because listen, look at the Scriptures. Your own Bible, Jesus, will tell you that if you have made the Father your refuge, and if He really loves you, then of course He'll protect you. Of course He'll protect you. So let's prove the Father's love for you. Let's prove that the Father's committed to you. You are the Son of God, the Beloved, and so let's just, let's make that clear so that you can know, I can know, and we can move on here. And so, what's He done? Here's another technique. This is the technique that happened way back at Genesis 3. It's a quotation of God's own words, but just a

slight twisting, a slight massaging. And so these words that were originally this prayer of confidence and trust to bring us to a place of prayer, the tester comes and he twists the purpose and he turns it into this formulaic prediction of health and wealth and promise to you. If you make God your refuge, well, of course he'll always rescue you and make your life turn out great. It's this deal right here. And all of a sudden, it's the genie in the bottle.

If the Father loves you, pull him out, make him rescue and solve your problems, and then everybody will know, and I will, you know, this kind of thing. And so what does Jesus do? He doesn't bite. He doesn't take the bait. Jesus answered him. This is good, right? So the tester says, for it's written, he quotes the Bible, Jesus says, it's also written, hi-yah, right back at him. So Psalm 91, Deuteronomy 6, right here. So don't put the Lord your God to the test. Deuteronomy 6, right here. So, don't put the Lord your God to the test. That's his counter move,

and his counter move is to go right back here. He's quoting from Deuteronomy 6 again that's talking about Israel failing the test, because they came out of Egypt, Yahweh saved them, and he's asking them to trust him, and they're barking back at him, take us back to Egypt, we hate it out here, you're going to kill us out here, or whatever. And what Israel tried to do is put Yahweh to the test. Prove to us that you're committed to us, that you're people. And you're like, the 10 plagues and the whole Egypt thing, and like, what, was that not proof enough? Whatever, you want more? And they put God to the test. And Jesus says, to do that puts God in my service. And that's not how this relationship works between the Father and the Son. The Son trusts the Father and doesn't make the Father perform tricks. And if the Father is going to ask the Son to lay down his life, he will do

that in whatever time the Father determines he's not going to test God as if God's his little dog to perform tricks or something like that. Second test. Let's look at the third. Verse 8. Again, the devil took him, I think here in some kind of vision, to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

This is kind of an aside. But there, I mean, there isn't any hill around Jerusalem or Galilee that's taller than like Mount Tabor here in Portland, you know? So when you say mountain here, there's no mount hoods anywhere in that part of the world.

So we're talking about a big hill. And I think here, clearly, it's in a vision. The whole point is he's brought in this vision, the kingdoms of the world. And the tester says, all this I'll give you. If you bow down and worship me. This is really, well, first of all, let's notice this. Has the tester changed tactics? How does he not open? What does he not open with? So he doesn't open with, if you are the Son of God. That's not working. Changed tactics. He tried it twice. Didn't work. So this is just this bold offer of power and authority. He's appealing to Jesus's destiny

and trying to get Jesus to wrestle with how he's going to get there. Is Jesus a king? So he's the anointed from the line of David. He's the Messiah. He's the king. Is Jesus destined to bring God's kingdom over all creation? So that's where the story… So the question is how? How is Jesus going to get there? What kind of king is he? And how is he… what kind of kingdom is he ruling over or bringing over the nations of the world? And so we're asked to think, consider this reality that is shot through all the New Testament, that the kingdoms of our world, as we know them, the social structures, the power structures by which humans organize themselves, are utterly compromised and infiltrated with evil. So we're going to have lots of portraits of individuals in the gospel who are being terrorized

by evil and spiritual evil. But for the most part, actually how the New Testament at least describes evil is to appeal to the powers and principalities, meaning the ruling, governing structures of human societies and so on. And so the tester claims that he has major influence over how this world runs. And I don't know, maybe you find that difficult to believe. I would just, at this point, man, I would just appeal to the 20th century. If you're over 14, you were born. You were born into the bloodiest century in human history. In the name of utopian society and goodness, somehow

humans organize ourselves and justify the expendability of human life on a scale that was never known in previous human history. We're talking about millions and millions and tens and tens and tens of millions of human lives extinguished in the name of some utopian vision of the good human society. Call it whatever you want, whatever it was called by the various regimes that were doing it. It was the bloodiest century that human race has ever known. What's going on here? What's going on? It's evil. And the Bible is trying to tell us that there is a reality of evil that's behind and working in and through, not just individuals, but the structures that we make that are utterly compromised. And it's about the strong eating the weak, right? It's about might

makes right. It's about whatever makes the machine run more efficiently and smoothly, no matter what people get crushed in the weight of those decisions. There you go. There we go. And so, this is a claim that runs right through the New Testament. And Jesus is here to deal with evil on a very personal level, but also at the root of the kingdoms of this world. And so, the question is, what kind of king is Jesus, and what kind of kingdom is he coming to bring? Now, notice what Jesus does here. Does Jesus take the bait? He doesn't. And he doesn't, but notice what he does. Every time that he had countered with Scripture, it is written, but notice what does he say to this tester before that? What does he say? Verse 10.

Before that, what does he say? Verse 10. You get out of here. You get out of here. Now, what's that about? So that's a bit of emotion from Jesus, right? In other words, Jesus recognizes here something that is utterly demonic and is compromising the very heart of who he is

and what he came to do. And this is not the only time that he was faced with this test, and this is not the only time that he said these very words. Can you think of the other time? Do you know the other time? Put your thumb here and turn forward with me. Matthew 16, and then we'll conclude. This is very powerful. Matthew chapter 16, verse 13. How you guys doing?

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who are people saying the Son of Man is? What did the tabloids say about me this week? They replied, some say you're John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. What about you guys right here, he asked. Who do you say that I am? Simon Peter, me, me, me, me.

Right? Simon Peter answered, well, you're the Messiah. You're the son of the living God. So does he pass the test, right? Does Peter get who Jesus is? So he has the vocabulary right. Go down to verse 21. At that time, Jesus began to explain to his disciples

that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, that he must be killed. And on the third day, raised to life. Peter took him aside and started to rebuke him. Yeah, no way. So that's very nice, Jesus. You're the Messiah. So you don't die, right? This is not going to happen. This is never going to happen to you. Messiahs don't die. Messiahs conquer.

They kick butt. That's what Messiahs do. If you read your Bible, Jesus, go read Psalm 2. Go read Isaiah 11, right? Usher peace and justice to the nations. evil, and so on. That's what you're supposed to do. You're not going to die. A dead Messiah failed Messiah. And what is Jesus' response to him? Read the words. What does he say? Does he respond to Peter? Jesus turned and said to Peter these same words that he said in the wilderness. You get out of here, Satan. This very emotional, visceral response from Jesus. You don't have, you have no clue what this is about. So you think that the kingdom of God and that what I've come here to do is to do what humans have always been doing, which is failing the test. And Jesus comes as this king. What is the

wilderness test about? It's about Jesus' decision and his loyalty to the Father to become an utterly different kind of human being than all you and I have become, which is an utter loyalty and oneness and connection to the Father, to our Creator, and who he reveals to us, and a revelation of the heart of God and what human existence is all about. And it's about self-giving love. That's Jesus' way of the kingdom. He will gain influence of others precisely by giving up His power and by giving up His life for others. And as He invites His disciples into that upside-down kingdom, he's going to ask us to consider this completely different vision of human existence, where the people who are usually

neglected are actually the most important people, and where how you gain victory over enemies is by loving them constantly and forgiving them, and by generously giving what you have so that people who normally don't have can actually have things. And this is the counterintuitive way of the kingdom of Jesus. And right from the beginning, it was a vocation and a calling that was tested. It was tested for Jesus, and he passed the test. This story is good news. He passed the test. He says to the tester, you get out of here. And he discerns in Peter's voice that same test, again, to compromise the ethic of the kingdom. And he says, you get out of here, Satan. And then what happens? Like right after this, he quotes scripture again, worship the Lord your God, serve him only, and what does the devil do? It's just over. It's gone. He's over. And this is one of my favorite scholars of Matthew. He has

such a great way of putting this. He says, every time spiritual evil appears again throughout the story of Matthew, these forces of evil wear the faces of defeat. This is Jesus's victory, you guys. It's his victory over evil. Now, does evil still have influence and is it still a force to be reckoned with? Like, you know, read the Gospels, right? Or read your life, right? Or read the newspaper. But we're being asked to consider the fact that Jesus has power over evil

and that regardless of whatever circumstances happen in your life or in our world, Jesus' life and his death and his resurrection tell the truth about the meaning of human existence and about the meaning of your life and my life. And why did he tell us this story? He told us this story because he knew that just as he faced this test, so his disciples would face this test,

in the prayer that he taught us to pray every single day, right? What's the last line of the prayer that he taught us to pray every single day, right? What's the last line of the prayer that he taught us to pray every single day? Lead us not into the test, but deliver us from the evil one. So it's this prayer that God not take us into the wilderness, and that if he does, it's this request for strengthening and deliverance. Because he knows that if you're trying to follow this Jesus and the upside-down way of the kingdom, you will be tested. And these same voices that attacked him will attack his disciples. And so here's, let's land the plane.

And let's just, let's think through what this means for us. What this means for us is that being a disciple of Jesus is like going into the wilderness. And if that being a disciple of Jesus is like going into the wilderness. And if you become a disciple of Jesus, please, please do not expect your life to become more easy. Right? So there might be some things that get resolved, but I guarantee that it will actually introduce more tension into your life. Because all of a sudden you're going to be struggling against following Jesus. And that every force and value

and ethic of your family and society is trying to teach you this other way of living as a human being. And that's just the beginning of it, right? Because then you have these relationships that are going to be tested. You're going to have these voices in your head, and call them whatever you want, but do you know these voices? Do you recognize the voices when you hear them? These voices that come and say to you, you know, if you're really the daughter of the king, look at your life. Like Jesus loves you. Look at your life. Like you're the son of God through Jesus. Like look at who you are. Look at the kinds of decisions that you've made. Look at what's happening in your life and the disappointments. You can honestly tell me that God loves you when your life has been like that. Do you know that? Do you recognize that voice for

what it is when you hear it? I think that's what the story's warning us about what's coming for us. the story's warning us about what's coming for us. And do you know what to do when that voice comes into your mind, into your heart? Do you know where to go? And I don't know where else to go except right here, right? And appeal to the words of Scripture and say to those voices, pardon my French, get the hell out of here. Those voices do not define who you are as a human being. Who you are as a human being made in God's image is defined first and foremost by Jesus, who loves us and gave himself for us. That's who you are. That's your value. And don't ever, ever doubt it. The voices that would dehumanize your value as a human being, the voices of shame that would try to degrade Jesus's love for you, they're evil, and they'll destroy you if you

listen to them, and you know what I'm talking about. And this story is good news, you guys. This story is that there is one human who went through the test for us, and we can point to him, we can stake our lives on him, and it might end up taking our lives, right? The commitment to Jesus is taking the lives of our brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq right now. It doesn't mean that God doesn't love them. It means that they're going through the test,

and they're going through the ordeal. And even their own physical death doesn't define whether or not God loves them because people don't live by just food and physical survival. We live by the words of God that became human to us and communicate God's love to us in Jesus. That's what this is about. And you know how to counter those voices in your head. And you guys, I know there are so many people, man,

just even in our community, they're going through such difficult circumstances, and the voices will come, and they'll try and tell you that this is all a farce, it's all an illusion, and you need to know what to do with those voices. Tell them to leave, and tell them that they're defeated, and that Jesus has done away with them, and they have no right to speak into your life. Do you believe that? And you may find it hard to believe, and sometimes I find it hard to believe, but this is discipleship Jesus 101, right? This is how you survive as a follower of Jesus, because there are forces at work that are against us. And so I kind of got passionate there a little bit. Sorry,

that doesn't happen to me very often, but there you go. I want to close us in prayer, and, you know, we're going to come to the table, to the bread and the cup, and we're going to retell this moment of where Jesus demonstrated His love for us in an act that took place in history of his death and resurrection for us. And so let's come to the table and allow this to define who we are as we worship Jesus together. Thank you guys for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible. We're going to keep exploring the gospel according to Matthew. And there you go, man, always, always learning, you know, thinking back about the series. I've both learned so much since then, but also this own kind of deep probe into the gospel of Matthew was really formative for my own just journey of learning and discovering what it means to know and follow Jesus.

So there you go. I hope it's helpful for you you and we'll continue on. See you guys next time.